Yes, There Will Be a Strip Club Next to Safeco Field

Big fan of baseball? Equally ardent admirer of adult entertainment venues where women strut around in the buff? Time to move to Seattle.

According to an article in today's Seattle Times, the Mariners are dropping a standing appeal of a judge's decision that will allow a strip club to be built approximately 1 1/2 blocks from the front gate of the team's Safeco Field. That's a grand total of 400 feet between a totally nude nightclub and an area where families will walk in to partake in the national pasttime, for those of you keeping score (please note that we delicately avoided at least two potential puns in that sentence).

The club, DreamGirls, will have both nude dancing and lap dances available to customers, though it won't serve any liquor whatsoever, in accordance with the licensing rules granted to the site when the club's proprietor, Roger Forbes, bought it.

So, why did the Mariners give up the fight for chastity in baseball? Probably because they standed little chance of actually winning it. When the team was able to gain a handful of concessions from the club in terms of the way it would advertise -- particularly on days when the Mariners will hold Little League-themed games and for graduations -- the Mariners pulled the plug on any further legal appeals. In total, nearly 30 days will be protected from having any images used in DreamGirls self-promotion.

"We feel good about it," Mariners spokeswoman Rebecca Hale told the Seattle Times of the settlement. Somehow we find that a little hard to believe, considering the lengths to which the team had gone to block the club up to this point.

Could this be the beginning of a new era of smut-based advertising in and around sports? Maybe. Or maybe Seattle fans just really have a thing for strip clubs. Who knows. Whatever the long term implications, one thing is for certain: The Seattle equivalent of Dan Steinberg will have ready made blogging material if he stakes out the front of DreamGirls next season. What are the odds no home or visiting player goes in there before/during/after at least one game?